Subject: Creating learning environments for systems thinking

Posted by Oren Zuckerman on 11/30/2004
In Reply To:Creating learning environments for systems thinking Posted by Nancy Southern on 11/29/2004

Message:

Dear Nancy,

I am developing new physical modeling and simulation tools to help children understand systems concepts.
I am deeply inspired by the work of Maria Montessori. My masters work at MIT Media Lab was a set of blocks that simulate stocks and flows, called 'System Blocks'. Currently, in my PhD, I am developing more 'computational manipulatives' to simulate other system concepts.

Below I wrote a short scenario describing one way I see this type of tools used in classroom.
A comprehensive overview of System Blocks and the study I did with children at Carlisle and Baldwin schools in MA is available in my Masters thesis:
http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/archive/zuckerman_MS_thesis.pdf

Keep the faith,
Oren


System Blocks scenario:
Jack, a ten years old boy has choice time at his 5th grade class. He chooses to play with SystemBlocks, and the teacher arranges the blocks in one of the classroom corners. Jack is already somewhat familiar with SystemBlocks. He saw the teacher demonstrating them a few weeks ago, and last week his friend Daniel chose them for his choice time, but Jack never used them by himself. He starts by setting up one of the examples from the ‘Systems Around Us’ guide. He browses through the different examples until he sees a picture of playing fields in a park. He likes baseball, so he picks this example. He takes the relevant cards out from the picture cards box, and stares at them. There are three picture cards: ‘people arriving at the playing fields’, ‘number of people currently at the playing fields’, and ‘people leaving the playing fields’. Jack knows he needs to place the cards in a certain order on the blocks before simulating. He is confused, not sure what order to place them. He decides to look back at the ‘bathtub example’ he saw the teachers demonstrating: ‘water flow into bathtub’, ‘level of water in the bathtub’, and ‘water flow out from bathtub’. He remembers how he should place them (see figure 3). Now, he thinks he knows how to place the playing fields cards. He places them, and starts to simulate. Turning the dial on the inflow Variable block, he sees the flow block lights moving towards the Stock, ‘those are the people arriving at the playing fields’ he says to himself. He watches how the light level in the Stock block increases, ‘this is probably the number of people currently in the playing fields’. The light in the Stock block continues to accumulate, and before it reaches the top, Jack turns the dial on the outflow Variable block all the way. Now, he sees the second Flow block lights moving away from the Stock, at a faster speed than the inflow, ‘those are the people leaving the playing fields’. To his surprise, the light level in the Stock block starts to decrease. ‘Hmmm…more people are leaving than arriving, that’s why the number of people currently in the park decreases…like when it’s getting dark and all the younger kids have to go’. Jack is satisfied, and looks for another example. He selects the ‘air pollution’ example, because he remembers his mom was talking about buying a new car that pollutes less than the current one they have. This time he decides to connect sound to hear the simulation on top of the built-in moving lights.